"As an active Muslim girl, I found it difficult to participate in most sports, because of all the excess clothes we were wearing. And the veilvery unpractical when playing sports," Aheda Zanetti wrote in an email to National Geographic News.

That's welcome news to girls like Zarina Jalal, a high school student who lives just outside of Albany, New York.

"If there was a way that I could do swimming without baring myself as much as I'm required to, then I'd definitely take up swimming more often," she said.

Jalal gave up soccer in middle school because of the requirement to wear shorts as part of the team uniform. She says clothing requirements can be a barrier for Muslim girls who want to play sports.

"The stereotypical clothing when you're doing anything athletic competitively is a very big turnoff for Muslim girls, in my opinion," she said.

To Market?

Taylor, of Azizah Magazine, sees great market potential for sportswear more appropriate for Muslim women.

"In another 15 years there's going to be a sizeable Muslim consumer market and lots of demand," she said. "I think we're where the Hispanic market was 20 years ago, and today the Hispanic market is a big consumer market."

Arun Jain, a marketing professor at the University of Buffalo in New York State, agrees.

He says, given the growth potential of the Muslim community in the United States, major sportswear manufacturers could be missing out on an opportunity to break into an emerging market.

"I believe it's a strategic blunder on their part," Jain said. "My feeling is that they don't think there's that much buying power, but I am certain that they're mistaken.

"If customers are given what they are looking for, they will be willing to pay, even at a higher price," he said.

That "strategic blunder" might pay off for the specialty shops that cater specifically to the needs of Muslim women in sports, he says.

Yuka Nakamura, a doctoral candidate in physical education and health at the University of Toronto in Canada, has studied Muslim women's participation in sports.

She says there's definitely a need for modest sportswear, even beyond Muslim communities.

She cites a program at a pool in Calgary, Canada, that tried to encourage more Muslim women to take up swimming by allowing them to wear T-shirts in the pool.

"It wasn't just Muslim women who wanted this," she said. "An increasing number of women felt more comfortable being covered up and even larger men who felt uncomfortable in a bathing suit and preferred to be in a T-shirt."

Azizah's Taylor agrees. "It's not only Muslim women who are making attempts to be modest when they go out," she said.

"There's also a contingency of Christian women and Jewish women and others who just don't feel that they need to show their bodies. Other women are striving to be modest as well."